NetGuard - no-root firewall

Marcel Bokhorst, FairCode BV

In-app purchases

About this app

A virus app scans apps for malicious behavior. NetGuard is complimentary to this by listing all installed apps and allowing you to block selected apps from sending sensitive information to the internet.

NetGuard provides simple and advanced ways to block access to the internet - no root required.

Applications and addresses can individually be allowed or denied access to your Wi-Fi and/or mobile connection.

Blocking access to the internet can help:

• reduce your data usage
• save your battery
• increase your privacy

Features:

• Simple to use
• No root required
• 100% open source
• No calling home
• No tracking or analytics
• No advertisements
• Actively developed and supported
• Android 5.1 and later supported
• IPv4/IPv6 TCP/UDP supported
• Tethering supported
• Optionally allow when screen on
• Optionally block when roaming
• Optionally block system applications
• Optionally notify when an application accesses the internet
• Optionally record network usage per application per address
• Material design theme with light and dark theme

PRO features:

• Log all outgoing traffic; search and filter access attempts; export PCAP files to analyze traffic
• Allow/block individual addresses per application
• New application notifications; configure NetGuard directly from the notification
• Display network speed graph in a status bar notification
• Select from five additional themes in both light and dark version

There is no other no-root firewall offering all these features.

If you like to test new features, you can participate in the test program: https://play.google.com/apps/testing/eu.faircode.netguard

All required permissions are described here: https://github.com/M66B/NetGuard/blob/master/FAQ.md#user-content-faq42

NetGuard uses the Android VPNService to route traffic to itself, so it can be filtered on-device instead of on a server. Only one app can use this service at the same time, which is a limitation of Android.

The full source code is available here: https://github.com/M66B/NetGuard

Ratings and reviews

Working great, as expected so far! But I've installed it 20 minutes ago lol - I was using NoRoot Firewall, which does the same thing, except there I got a notification every single time an app wanted access, so imagine literally thousands of notifications... Not with NetGuard though! Thank you :) - I've put NetGuard in my list of optimization exceptions, so far it hasn't closed, which was an issue with other apps (not the app's fault), but so far so good! I'll be purchasing pro features soon.

Using this for months with great success. After installing a new game, before running it, I turn off web and cell access for it. No ads on the free games! Some might pause on startup while they desperately try to find ads to spam you, but will eventually give up and let you play ad free. A very few won't let you play, but very few. And any that use web servers for daily contests and the like will need access. If I love the game I'll let ads in, but if they ruin the game I turn off access again.

Really awesome. Yes there is a small learning curve, but not that big, more of an understanding curve. Yes it can take time to get things properly configured. Yes it's worth your time. I combined this with Bouncer to manage permissions. Disabled mobile background data on some apps. With these together you can save on your data and stop certain apps from spying, to some extent. If you're really looking at locking down, you'd really need to root, but since some can't do that for whichever reasons, this and Bouncer are your best options.

What's new

* See here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/15y7g70/